Mobile-Enabled Systems and Processes For Intelligent Research Platform

ABSTRACT

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to implementing image-based retrieval of a cited reference in a written work. A unique alphanumeric identifier extracted from an image taken of a portion of a written work can be programmatically compared to stored identifiers in an authority database in response to a request received from a portable computing device. Cited reference data can be retrieved from the authority database in response to a favorably comparison of the unique alphanumeric identifier to at least one of the stored identifiers associated with a reference stored in the authority database and the cited reference data can be provided to the portable computing device for output on the display of the portable computing device.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims priority to U.S. Provisional PatentApplication Ser. No. 61/738,725, filed on Dec. 18, 2012, and U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/789,663, filed on Mar. 15,2013, the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein intheir entirety.

COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION

Portions of this patent application include materials that are subjectto copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to thefacsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document itself, or ofthe patent application as it appears in the files of the United StatesPatent and Trademark Office, but otherwise reserves all copyright rightswhatsoever.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure relate to intelligentresearch platforms such as those including research and authoringproductivity software that can be used in conjunction with bibliographicdatabases and reference searching management software, and moreparticularly to mobile-enabled workflow systems and processes forproviding enhanced access to, and availability of, data and informationfrom cited reference and/or other authoritative databases accessiblethrough intelligent research platforms.

BACKGROUND

Mobile technology is dramatically changing the manner by which peopleaccess and consume data and information as well as their expectationswith regard to technological capabilities surrounding the mobileparadigm. Consumers of data and information are demanding “always-on,”on-the-go, connectivity, and faster and seamless access to data andinformation in a platform-agnostic manner. The proliferation ofsmartphones, tablets, subnotebooks and other portable devices issimultaneously driving and answering this demand as improvements ininfrastructure strive to keep up. The consumer expectation is that shewill be able to effect through a portable computing device thefunctionality and features of what previously was the sole province ofthe desktop computer.

In addition to changing the manner in which data and information isobtained, mobile technology is also simultaneously driving and answeringthe demand for the type and variety of data and information that isavailable. For example, in the area of scholarly and scientific researchand written works, there is a great demand to access and consume vastamounts and varieties of data and content and other informationcontained in written works of literature, such as books, treatises,legal opinions, journal articles, magazines or other periodicals,manuscripts, and papers presented, submitted and published by society,industry and professional organizations such as in proceedings andtransactions publications. One manner by which users of this scholarlyand scientific research access and consume this data and information isthrough “bibliographic citation.”

“Bibliographic citation” is a sophisticated process and convention fordocumenting research, supporting materials and organizing fields ofstudy. In order to facilitate the widespread distribution of informationpublished in scholarly written works to more efficiently and effectivelymove bodies of study forward, scholars and scientists use bibliographiccitation to recognize the prior work of others, or even themselves, onwhich advancements set forth in their written works are based. A“bibliography” may refer to either of a complete or selective list orcompilation of written works specific to an author, publisher or givensubject, or it may refer to a list or compilation of written worksrelied on or considered by an author in preparing a particular writtenwork, such as a paper, article, book or other informational object.

“Citations” or “cited references,” as included in any particular work orbody of work, is used herein to refer broadly to cited references,bibliographic or other reference data, that collectively form in-textcitations, footnotes, endnotes, and bibliographies and are used toidentify sources of information relied on or considered by the authorand to give the reader a way to confirm accuracy of the content anddirection for further study. A citation briefly describes and identifiesa cited written work as a source of information or reference to anauthority. Citations and bibliographies follow particular formattingconventions to enhance consistency in interpreting the information. Eachcitation typically includes the following information: full title,author name(s), publication data, including publisher identity, volume,edition and other data, and date and location of publication.

Citations also often include a unique alphanumeric identifier known as adigital object identifier (“DOI”). The DOI system was created by theInternational DOI Foundation and has been adopted as an InternationalStandard, ISO 26324. A DOI is a character string that is used touniquely identify electronic documents, including the aforementionedscholarly written work of literatures. Metadata, including a URL orother location of the scholarly written works or other document, isassociated with the DOI and stored. While the metadata and URL or otherlocation may change, the DOI is unique and permanent for the document.Thus, a DOI provides a more consistent and stable link for access andretrieval of the document.

The aforementioned scholarly written works may be available throughcomprehensive reference management systems, such as Thomson Reuters' Webof Knowledge research platform. Such research platforms provide anintegrated or integratable system of research and authoring productivitysoftware for use in conjunction with databases of interest to provideaccess to a vast area of scholarly data and content. For example,Thomson Reuters' commercially-available Web of Science° solutionprovides citation researching and analysis through bibliographic andcitation content and information accessed from commercial, proprietarydatabases as well as publicly-available citation databases, such asCrossRef and PubMed. These reference management systems may furtherintegrate authoring tools and solutions, for example, Thomson Reuterspublishing solutions including EndNote®, EndNote Web®, and ReferenceManager®, which are commercially available solutions for creating,writing, publishing, and managing bibliographies, papers, publications,and other scholarly documents.

In view of the increasing demand for “always-on,” on-the-go,connectivity, and faster and seamless access to data and information,improved mobile-enabled systems and processes are needed to provideusers of scholarly and scientific research access to cited referenceand/or other authoritative databases accessible through intelligentresearch platforms.

SUMMARY

Mobile workflow systems and processes are disclosed for providingenhanced access to, and availability of, data information from citedreference and/or other authoritative databases accessible throughintelligent research platforms. Exemplary embodiments of the presentdisclosure can be utilized to implement image-based retrieval of citedreference data from the authority database(s). Image-based retrieval caninclude converting an image of text included in a written work into amachine-readable format to facilitate extraction of a uniquealphanumeric identifier from the image, which can be used to retrievecited reference data from the authority database(s)

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, a method ofimplementing image-based retrieval of a cited reference in a writtenwork is disclosed. The method includes programmatically comparing, by acomputer system, a unique alphanumeric identifier extracted from animage taken of a portion of a written work to stored identifiers in anauthority database in response to a request received from a portablecomputing device. The portable computing device has a display, at leastone processor, a battery, and an image capture device. The method alsoincludes executing code to retrieve, from the authority database, citedreference data in response to a favorably comparison of the uniquealphanumeric identifier to at least one of the stored identifiersassociated with a reference stored in the authority database andproviding the cited reference data from the computer system to theportable computing device for output on the display of the portablecomputing device.

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, a computersystem for implementing image-based retrieval of a cited reference in awritten work is disclosed. The computer system includes one or morecomputing device. The one or more computing devices have at least oneprocessing device and at least one non-transitory computer-readablemedium storing instruction that are executed by the at least oneprocessing device. Execution of the instructions by the at least oneprocessing device causes the processing device to programmaticallycompare a unique alphanumeric identifier extracted from an image takenof a portion of a written work to stored identifiers in an authoritydatabase in response to a request received from a portable computingdevice. The portable computing device has a display, at least oneprocessor, a battery, and an image capture device. Execution of theinstructions by the at least one processing device further causes theprocessing device to retrieve, from the authority database, citedreference data in response to a favorably comparison of the uniquealphanumeric identifier to at least one of the stored identifiersassociated with a reference stored in the authority database and providethe cited reference data from the one or more computing devices to theportable computing device for output on the display of the portablecomputing device.

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, a portablecomputing device for implementing image-based retrieval of a citedreference in a written work from an authority database is disclosed. Theportable computing device includes a non-transitory computer-readablemedium, an image capture unit, a processing device and a battery. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium stores executable instructionsto facilitate an image-based retrieval of a cited reference in a writtenwork from an authority database. The image capture unit configured tocapture an image of text included in the written work. The batterysupplies power to the non-transitory computer-readable media, the imagecapture unit, and the processing device. The processing device isoperatively coupled to the image capture unit and the non-transitorycomputer-readable medium and is programmed to execute the executableinstructions to interact with the image capture unit to receive theimage of the text included in the written work, extract a uniquealphanumeric identifier from the image based on a character recognitionprocess performed on the image to convert the text in the image into amachine-readable format, output a request including the uniquealphanumeric identifier to a reference management system for retrievalof cited reference data from the authority database, and receive thecited reference data stored the authority database in response to afavorable comparison of the unique alphanumeric identifier with a storedidentifier in the authority database. The portable can be a mobile phoneor a tablet computing device.

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, the uniquealphanumeric identifier can be extracted upon execution of a characterrecognition process that includes an optical character recognition (OCR)process, an intelligent character recognition (ICR) process, and/or anintelligent word recognition (IWR) process. Extraction of the uniquealphanumeric identifier from the image can be performed by a characterrecognition process implemented by the portable computing device, thecomputer system, and/or a second computer system that may be separatefrom or integrated with the computer system. Alphanumeric charactersextracted from the image can be parsed to obtain the unique alphanumericidentifier. In some embodiments, the unique alphanumeric identifier canbe a digital object identifier.

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, the writtenwork can a scholarly reference publication and the image can includetext of the scholarly reference publication. The unique alphanumericidentifier can include alphanumeric characters extracted from the textincluded in the image and can be used to retrieve cited reference datafrom an authority database in the form of a cited reference database.The cited reference data can include title, author, and/or publicationyear information. The cited reference data can be stored in a referencemanagement system by the portable computing device. The referencemanagement system can be integrated with the computer system can includea web-based user interface.

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, a furtherrequest can be received by the computer device from the portablecomputing device if the unique alphanumeric identifier does not comparefavorably with the stored identifiers in the authority database, thefurther request including modified search criteria. The authoritydatabase can be searched based on the modified search criteria.

In accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure, anauthorization process can be implemented to determine whether a user ofthe portable computing device is an authorized user and/or anauthorization level of a user of the portable computing device. A firstsubset of the cited reference data can be provided from the computersystem based on a first level of authorization of the user and a secondsubset of the cited reference data can be provided by the computersystem based on a second level of authorization of the user. The firstand second authorization levels can be based on a subscription servicelevel and the user can be authenticated based on a subscription status.The cited reference data can be optimized for display on a portablecomputing device if the user of the portable computing device isauthorized.

Any combination and permutation of embodiments is envisioned. Otherobjects and features will become apparent from the following detaileddescription considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Itis to be understood, however, that the drawings are designed as anillustration only and not as a definition of the limits of the presentdisclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be understood fromthe following detailed description when read with the accompanyingFigures. In the drawings, like reference numerals refer to like partsthroughout the various views of the non-limiting and non-exhaustiveembodiments of the present invention, and wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram depicting an exemplary reference managementenvironment in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a portable computing device that can beutilized to interact with a reference management system in accordancewith embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an exemplary computing device that can beutilized to implement a reference management system, or portionsthereof, in accordance with exemplary embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIGS. 4-9 depict schematic diagrams presenting configurations ofhardware and software components and services to implement a referencemanagement environment in accordance with exemplary embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 10 depicts an exemplary embodiment of online information-retrievaland analysis components of a comprehensive reference management systemin accordance with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 illustrates non-exhaustive examples of written works ofliterature that can be utilized in accordance with exemplary embodimentsof the present disclosure.

FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary image acquisition interface rendered ona portable computing device in accordance with exemplary embodiments ofthe present disclosure.

FIGS. 13 and 14 illustrate exemplary graphical user interfaces that canbe rendered on a display of a portable computing device in accordancewith exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 15 depicts an exemplary graphical user interface that can berendered on a display of the portable computing device to retrieve andstore citation reference data in accordance with exemplary embodimentsof the present disclosure.

FIG. 16 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary image-based referenceretrieval process that can be implemented in accordance with exemplaryembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 17 is flowchart illustrating an exemplary image-based referenceretrieval process that can be implemented in accordance with exemplaryembodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to imagebased retrieval of cited reference data in response to a captured imagefrom a portion of a written work that includes a unique alphanumericidentifier, which can be utilized to retrieve one or more referencesfrom an authority database. Exemplary embodiments of the presentdisclosure provide an efficient approach to retrieval of cited referencedata to provide users demanding “always-on,” on-the-go, connectivity, afaster and seamless interface to access cited reference data.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram depicting an exemplary reference managementenvironment 10 implemented in accordance with exemplary embodiments ofthe present disclosure to facilitate searching, identifying, and/orretrieving of bibliographic information and/or one or more full textversions of one or more references based on a captured image of uniquealphanumeric identifier(s) 102 included in a written work 104(image-based reference retrieval). Exemplary embodiments of theenvironment 10 can include a reference management system 100 that can beimplemented using hardware, software, and/or a combination thereof. Asone example, in some embodiments, one or more computing devices can beprogrammed and/or configured to implement exemplary embodiments of thesystem 100 or portions thereof. The system 100 can include a userinterface 110 that is in communication with an image capture engine 120,which controls an image capture device 122; a recognition engine 130; aheuristics engine 140; an extraction engine 150; a reference manager 160communicatively coupled to authority database(s) 162; a personalreference library 170; a full text database 180; and atransaction/subscriber engine 190.

The unique alphanumeric identifier 102 can be a string of alphanumericcharacters (e.g., text and numbers). In exemplary embodiments, theunique alphanumeric identifier 102 can be, for example, a digital objectidentifier (“DOI”), an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), aPubmed Identifier/Pubmed Central Identifier, a CAS Registry number,and/or any other suitable unique alphanumeric identifiers that can beutilized to retrieve reference citations within a work. An ISBN is aunique commercial book identifier that is assigned to a book and isbased upon a nine digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code. A PubmedIdentifier/Pubmed Central Identifier is a document identification schemafor the Pubmed database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. A CASRegistry number is a chemical abstract identification number for acommercial chemical abstracts database from the American ChemicalSociety. The term “alphanumeric” is used broadly herein to refer tounique identifiers formed of letter/characters from one or more originsor alphabets (e.g., Latin, Chinese, Japanese, etc.), numbers/digits fromone or more origins (e.g., Arabic), and/or a combination ofletters/characters and numbers/digits.

The written work 104 can be any written work of literature thatincorporates a unique alphanumeric identifier that can be used toidentify and/or retrieve a reference to and/or within the written workof literature. For example, the written work 104 can be an article(e.g., academic article, industry article, journal article), book,periodical, thesis, dissertations, grant proposals, patent applications,patents, and the like. The unique alphanumeric identifiers 102 can beembedded on or in the written works 104 and can be surrounded by orincorporated into the content of the written works 104 such that animage capture of the unique alphanumeric identifier 102 can also includeother content of the written work 104 such that the unique alphanumericidentifier may need to be distinguished from the other content andextracted independently from the other content.

The user interface 110 can be programmed and/or configured to provideone or more graphical user interfaces (GUIs) 112 through which a usercan interact with the system 100. The GUIs 112 displayed to users caninclude data entry areas to receive information from the user;user-selectable elements or areas that can be selected by the user tocause the system 100 to perform one or more operations, functions,and/or processes; and/or can include data outputs to display informationto the user. In exemplary embodiments, the user interface can beutilized by a user to interface with the engines 120, 130, 140, and 150,as well as the reference manager 160, the personal reference library170, the full text database 180, and the transaction engine 190.

The image capture engine 120 can be programmed and/or configured tocontrol the image capture device 122 (e.g., a digital still camera) tocapture an image of a portion of the written work 104 that includes theunique alphanumeric identifier 102 in response to user input receivedvia the user interface 110. The image captured by the image capturedevice can be provided to the user interface 110, which can display theimage to the user and/or provide the image as an input to therecognition engine 130. In some embodiments, the image can beautomatically provided to the recognition engine 130 and/or can beprovided to the recognition engine 130 in response to an input from theuser received via the user interface 110. In some embodiments, the imagecapture engine 120 can provide the image to the recognition engine 140directly.

The recognition engine 130 can receive the image captured by the imagecapture device 122 from the image capture engine 120 and/or the userinterface 110. In exemplary embodiments, the recognition engine 130 canbe programmed and/or configured to convert the captured image intomachine-encoded data or textual elements. The recognition engine 130 canutilize optical character recognition (OCR) processes, intelligentcharacter recognition (ICR) processes, and/or an intelligent wordrecognition (IWR) processes to identify and extract data or textualelements from the captured image.

The data/textual elements can be provided to the heuristics engine 140,which can be programmed and/or configured to perform one or moreprocesses to identify the unique alphanumeric identifier 102 formed bythe extracted data/textual elements. For example, the heuristics engine140 can be programmed and/or configured to recognize patterns and/orsignatures associated with one or more types of unique alphanumericidentifiers to identify a unique alphanumeric identifier formed by atleast some of the data/textual elements extracted from the capturedimage. As one example, the heuristics engine 140 can search thedata/textual elements for groups of data/textual elements having aquantity of elements that corresponds to a quantity of elements in oneor more specified types of unique alphanumeric identifiers and/or canidentify whether the elements in each identified group include aspecified type of data/textual elements in a specified order or positionwithin the group. As another example, the heuristics engine 140 can beprogrammed and/or configured to search multiple authority databases in aspecific order based on the patterns found in the data/textual elementsextracted from the captured image. In some embodiments, the heuristicsengine 140 can be programmed and/or configured to limit searching to aspecific subset of fields within specific authority databases based onthe patterns found in the data/textual elements extracted from thecaptured image.

The extraction engine 150 can be programmed and/or configured to extractthe unique alphanumeric identifier from the data/textual elements. Forexample, heuristic engine 140 can provide the extraction engine 150 withthe unique alphanumeric identifier 102 based on the processes performedby the heuristic engine 140 and the extraction engine 150 can providethe unique alphanumeric identifier to the user interface 110, which candisplay the unique alphanumeric identifier to the user and/or canprovide the reference management system 160 with the unique alphanumericidentifier 102. In some embodiments, the extraction engine 150 canreceive the data/textual elements from the recognition engine 130directly and can be programmed and/or configured to identify and extractthe unique alphanumeric identifier 102 from the data/textual elements.

In exemplary embodiments, the extraction engine 150 can be programmedand/or configured to execute code or scripts that are used to parse theextracted textual/data elements to determine whether a uniquealphanumeric identifier is present in a captured image. For example, theextraction engine 150 can determine whether there are any uniquealphanumeric identifiers that correspond to one or more predefined typesof unique alphanumeric identifiers. If so, the extraction engine canprovide the user interface 110 with the unique alphanumeric identifier,which can provide the unique alphanumeric identifier to the referencemanager 160 to facilitate retrieval of bibliographic informationassociated with the unique alphanumeric identifier and/or to facilitateretrieval of a full text version of a reference associated with theunique alphanumeric identifier. In some embodiments, the extractionengine 150 can provide the unique alphanumeric identifier to thereference manager 160 directly. If a unique alphanumeric identifier isnot detected, the extraction engine 150 provide a notification to theuser interface that a unique alphanumeric identifier was not detected orthat the process to obtain the unique alphanumeric identifier otherwisefailed. In some embodiments, the extraction engine 150 can be programmedand/or configured to interact with the reference manager to suggestpossible unique alphanumeric identifiers if an exact match has not beento a predefined type of unique alphanumeric identifier has not beendetected.

Upon receipt of the unique alphanumeric identifier 102, the referencemanager 160 can perform as search of one or more of the authoritydatabases for stored identifiers corresponding to the uniquealphanumeric identifier 102. For example, the reference manager 160 cansearch for an instance of the unique alphanumeric identifier or likeidentifiers stored by one or more of the authority databases. In someembodiments, the reference manager 160 can include search criteria thatincludes the unique alphanumeric identifier as well as other parametersto facilitate retrieval not only of reference corresponding to an exactmatch between the unique alphanumeric identifier and the storedidentifier, but to also facilitate the retrieval of other referencesthat have stored identifiers that are similar to the unique alphanumericidentifier. Using this approach, the reference manager 160 can returnthe reference having a stored identifier that exactly matches the uniquealphanumeric identifier 102 captured from the written work 104, one ormore references having stored identifiers that are similar to the uniquealphanumeric identifier 102, or both, which can be provided to the userinterface 110 for display to the user. If the reference manager 160 doesnot return any references based on the search, the reference manager 160can instruct the user interface that no results were found and the userinterface 110 can be programmed and/or configured to request furthersearch information from the user, such as author information, titleinformation, publisher information, publication dates, and/or any othersuitable information that can be utilized by the reference manager 160to query the authority database(s) 162 for references.

The authority database(s) 162 can include proprietary and/or publicdatabases in which unique alphanumeric identifiers are assigned to datastructures including bibliographic information and/or full writtenworks, which can be utilized to consistently, uniquely, andunambiguously identify the bibliographic information and/or the fullwritten works. Bibliographic information and full-text versions ofwritten works can be collectively and/or independently referred toherein as cited reference data. The authority databases can includecross references and/or logical linkages to other data structuresincluding related or similar written works, e.g., based on authorship,titles, publishers, abstracts, publication year, and the like. Someexamples of authority databases include, for example, the Web ofScience, Web of Knowledge, Cortellis, Biological Abstracts, and/orThomson Reuters Innovation provided by Thomson Reuters, as well as,PubMed from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI),AMJUR, Crossref.org, JSTOR from ITHAKA, and/or BioOne.

After the reference manager 160 returns one or more references based ona query of one or more of the authority databases 162, the user canstore one of more of the reference in the personal reference library 170for subsequent use via the user interface 110 and/or can retrieve a fulltext version of the reference from the full text database 180. Thepersonal reference library 170 can include one or more references storedby a user in the user's account. The full text database 180 can receivea request from the user via the user interface to retrieve a completeversion of the written work returned by the search performed by thereference manager 160. In some embodiments, the reference manager 160can automatically store the reference(s) returned by the search in thepersonal reference library and/or can automatically query the full textdatabase 180 to retrieve and return the full text version of thereference to the user.

In some embodiments, a fee may be associated with access the referencemanager 160, the personal data library 170, and/or the full textdatabase 180. In these embodiments, the user interface 110 can interactwith a transaction engine 190. The transaction engine 190 can beprogrammed and/or configured to facilitate payment of fees to permitaccess to the reference manager 160, the personal reference library,and/or the full text database 180. For example, a user can interfacewith the system 100 via the user interface 110, but before the user isgiven access to the reference manager and/or the full text database theuser can be required to open an account via the transaction engine. Insome embodiments, the full text database 180 can also be an authoritydatabase.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a portable computing device 200 that can beutilized to implement and/or interact with embodiments of the referencemanagement system 100. The portable computing device 200 can be asmartphone, tablet, subnotebook, laptop, personal digital assistant(PDA), and/or any other suitable portable computing device that includesor can be operatively connected to an image capture device and can beprogrammed and/or configured to implement and/or interact withembodiments of the reference management system 100. The portablecomputing device 200 can include a processing device 204, such as adigital signal processor (DSP) or microprocessor, memory/storage 206 inthe form a non-transitory computer-readable medium, an image captureunit 208, a display unit 210, a battery 212, and an radio frequencytransceiver 214. Some embodiments of the portable computing device 200can also include other common components commonly, such as sensors 216,subscriber identity module (SIM) card 218, audio components 220 and 222,and power management circuitry 224.

The memory 206 can include any suitable, non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium, e.g., read-only memory (ROM), erasableprogrammable ROM (EPROM), electrically-erasable programmable ROM(EEPROM), flash memory, and the like. In exemplary embodiments, anoperating system 226 and applications 228 can be embodied ascomputer-readable/executable program code stored on the non-transitorycomputer-readable memory 206 and implemented using any suitable, high orlow level computing language and/or platform, such as, e.g., Java, C,C++, C#, assembly code, machine readable language, and the like. In someembodiments, the applications 228 can include an image applicationconfigured to interact with the image capture unit, a web browserapplication, a mobile application specifically coded to interface withembodiments of the reference management system 100, the engines 130,140, and/or 150. While memory is depicted as a single component thoseskilled in the art will recognize that the memory can be formed frommultiple components and that separate non-volatile and volatile memorydevice can be used.

The processing device 204 can include any suitable single- ormultiple-core microprocessor of any suitable architecture that iscapable of implementing and/or facilitating an operation of the portablecomputing device 200. For example, to perform an image captureoperation, transmit the captured image (e.g., via the RF transceiver214), transmit/receive a unique alphanumeric identifier included in thecaptured image (e.g., via the RF transceiver 214), displaydata/information including GUIs 112 of the user interface 110, capturedimages, unique alphanumeric identifiers, bibliographic information, fulltext versions of references, and the like. The processing device 204 canbe programmed and/or configured to execute the operating system 226 andapplications 228 (e.g., image application and engine 130, 140, and 150)to implement one or more processes to perform an operation. Theprocessing device 204 can retrieve information/data from and storeinformation/data to the storage device 206. For example, the processingdevice can retrieve and/or store captured images, unique alphanumericidentifiers included in the captured images, bibliographic information,full text versions of references, and/or any other suitableinformation/data that can be utilized by the portable computing deviceand/or the user.

The RF transceiver 214 can be configured to transmit and/or receivewireless transmissions via an antenna 215. For example, the RFtransceiver 214 can be configured to transmit data/information, such asone or more images captured by the image capture unit and/or uniquealphanumeric identifiers included in the captured images, directly orindirectly, to one or more servers and/or to receive data/information,such as a unique alphanumeric identifier, bibliographic informationcorresponding to a unique alphanumeric identifier, and/or full textversions of references corresponding to unique alphanumeric identifiers,directly or indirectly, from one or more servers. The RF transceiver 214can be configured to transmit and/or receive information having at aspecified frequency and/or according to a specified sequence and/orpacket arrangement.

The display unit 210 can render user interfaces, such as graphical userinterfaces to a user and in some embodiments can provide a mechanismthat allows the user to interact with the GUIs. For example, a user mayinteract with the portable computing device 200 through display unit210, which may be implemented as a liquid crystal touch-screen (orhaptic) display, a light emitting diode touch-screen display, and/or anyother suitable display device, which may display one or more userinterfaces (e.g., GUIs 112) that may be provided in accordance withexemplary embodiments.

The power source 212 can be implemented as a battery or capacitiveelements configured to store an electric charge and power the portablecomputing device. In exemplary embodiments, the power source 212 can bea rechargeable power source, such as a battery or one or more capacitiveelements configured to be recharged via a connection to an externalpower supply.

In some embodiments, the portable computing device can implement an OCRor other character/word recognition process via an execution of theimage capture engine 120 and/or an execution of one of the applications228. In these embodiments, the image capture unit 208 can include apre-processing character recognition and data element extraction unit aspart of the image capture engine 120 that works in conjunction with oneof the applications 228 stored in main memory of the portable computingdevice to convert the captured imaged into machine-encoded data or textand parse the extracted text/data elements. In some embodiments, theportable computing device 200 can include an image characterization unit230 utilized by the processing device 204 to determine the “texture” ofthe document whose image is being captured (e.g., type of paper). Inresponse to this determination, the processing device 204 can assign anappropriate imaging algorithm to the image capture to improve the imagerecognition process and to minimize or reduce potential errors and/orfaults in the image recognition process.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an exemplary computing device 300 that canbe utilized to implement embodiments of the reference management system100 or portions thereof. In the present embodiment, the computing device300 is configured as a server that is programmed and/or configured toexecute one of more of the operations and/or functions of the referencemanagement system 100 and to facilitate communication with a portablecomputing device, such as embodiments of the portable computing device200. The computing device 300 includes one or more non-transitorycomputer-readable media for storing one or more computer-executableinstructions or software for implementing exemplary embodiments. Thenon-transitory computer-readable media may include, but are not limitedto, one or more types of hardware memory, non-transitory tangible media(for example, one or more magnetic storage disks, one or more opticaldisks, one or more flash drives), and the like. For example, memory 306included in the computing device 300 may store computer-readable andcomputer-executable instructions or software for implementing exemplaryembodiments of the system 100 or portions thereof. The computing device300 also includes configurable and/or programmable processor 302 andassociated core 304, and optionally, one or more additional configurableand/or programmable processor(s) 302′ and associated core(s) 304′ (forexample, in the case of computer systems having multipleprocessors/cores), for executing computer-readable andcomputer-executable instructions or software stored in the memory 306and other programs for controlling system hardware. Processor 302 andprocessor(s) 302′ may each be a single core processor or multiple core(304 and 304′) processor.

Virtualization may be employed in the computing device 300 so thatinfrastructure and resources in the computing device may be shareddynamically. A virtual machine 314 may be provided to handle a processrunning on multiple processors so that the process appears to be usingonly one computing resource rather than multiple computing resources.Multiple virtual machines may also be used with one processor.

Memory 306 may include a computer system memory or random access memory,such as DRAM, SRAM, EDO RAM, and the like. Memory 306 may include othertypes of memory as well, or combinations thereof.

The computing device 300 may also include one or more storage devices324, such as a hard-drive, CD-ROM, mass storage flash drive, or othercomputer readable media, for storing data and computer-readableinstructions and/or software that can be executed by the processingdevice 302 to implement exemplary embodiments of the system 100described herein.

The computing device 300 can include a network interface 312 configuredto interface via one or more network devices 322 with one or morenetworks, for example, Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN)or the Internet through a variety of connections including, but notlimited to, standard telephone lines, LAN or WAN links (for example,802.11, T1, T3, 56 kb, X.25), broadband connections (for example, ISDN,Frame Relay, ATM), wireless connections (including via cellular basestations), controller area network (CAN), or some combination of any orall of the above. The network interface 312 may include a built-innetwork adapter, network interface card, PCMCIA network card, card busnetwork adapter, wireless network adapter, USB network adapter, modem orany other device suitable for interfacing the computing device 300 toany type of network capable of communication and performing theoperations described herein. While the computing device 300 depicted inFIG. 3 is implemented as a server, exemplary embodiments of thecomputing device 300 can be any computer system, such as a workstation,desktop computer or other form of computing or telecommunications devicethat is capable of communication with other devices either by wirelesscommunication or wired communication and that has sufficient processorpower and memory capacity to perform the operations described herein.

The computing device 300 may run any server application 316, such as anyof the versions of server applications including any Unix-based serverapplications, Linux-based server application, any proprietary serverapplications, or any other server applications capable of running on thecomputing device 300 and performing the operations described herein. Anexample of a server application that can run on the computing deviceincludes the Apache server application.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram presenting a system configuration of andsoftware components/service to implement an exemplary embodiment of thesystem 100 in a client-server environment 400. As shown in FIG. 4, theenvironment 400 includes a server 410 operatively coupled to (portablecomputing device) clients 420-422 via a communication network 450, whichcan be any network over which information can be transmitted betweendevices communicatively coupled to the network. For example, thecommunication network 450 can be the Internet, Intranet, virtual privatenetwork (VPN), wide area network (WAN), local area network (LAN), andthe like. Embodiments of the server 410 can be implemented in a mannersimilar to the computing device 300 of FIG. 3 and the clients 420-422can be implemented in a manner similar to the portable computing device200 of FIG. 2.

In an exemplary embodiment, the system 100 can be implemented by theserver 410. The server 410 can be implemented as a web server that hoststhe user interface of the system 100, which can be accessed by theclients 420-422 to display GUIs of the user interface on displays of theclients 420-422, which can be used to facilitate image-based retrievalof bibliographic information and/or full text versions of referencesassociated with a unique alphanumeric identifiers included in imagescaptured by the clients 420-422.

As shown in FIG. 4, the clients 420-422 can each include a client sideapplication 423 programmed and/or configured to interact with the server410 to access and execute the environment 100. In some embodiments, theclient-side application 423 implemented by one or more of the clients420-422 can be a web-browser capable of navigating to one or more webpages hosting GUIs of the system 100. In some embodiments, theclient-side application 423 implemented by one or more of the clients420-422 can be an application specific to the system 100 that isinstalled on the clients 420-422 to permit interaction with the system100 being executed by the server 410.

In an exemplary operation, the clients 420-422 can be operated by usersto capture images of portions of written work that include uniquealphanumeric identifiers associated with written work or referencescited within the written work. For example, the users can access thesystem via the clients 420-422 to display a GUI on the display of theclients 420-422 that provides an interface for capturing an image. Afterthe image is captured, the clients 420-422 can transmit the image to theserver 410 (either wirelessly or through a wire) via the communicationnetwork 450. The system being executed by the server can convert thecaptured imaged into machine-encoded data or textual elements, which canbe parsed to detect unique alphanumeric identifiers included in thecaptured image. In some embodiments, heuristics can be used to performan analysis of the data/textual elements to aid in the detection of theunique alphanumeric identifiers. If a unique alphanumeric identifier hasbeen detected, the system 100 can instructed the server 410 to displaythe unique alphanumeric identifier to the user via a GUI forconfirmation.

The system 100 can include and/or interface with one or more authoritydatabases and/or full text databases (e.g., database(s) 430) to retrievebibliographic information and/or a full text version of the referenceassociated with the unique alphanumeric identifier in response to aconfirmation from the user and/or automatically (e.g., without requiringconformation from the user). Once the system 100 retrieves thebibliographic information and/or full text, the bibliographicinformation and/or full text can be made available to the user via a GUIdisplayed in the client device 420-422 via the server 410. The users cancontrol the clients 420-422 to view the bibliographic information and/orfull text, save the bibliographic information and/or full text to theusers' personal reference library maintained by the system. In someembodiments, the system provides the user with the bibliographicinformation by default and the user must separately request the fulltext version of the reference.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram presenting a system configuration of andsoftware components/service to implement an exemplary distributedembodiment of the system 100 in a client-server environment 500. Asshown in FIG. 5, the environment 500 includes servers 510-512operatively coupled to the clients 420-422 via the communication network450. Embodiments of the servers 510-512 can be implemented in a mannersimilar to the computing device 300 of FIG. 3.

In an exemplary embodiment, the system 100 can be distributed across theservers 510-512. For example, the server 510 can implement the userinterface 110, the server 511 can implement the recognition engine 130,the heuristics engine 140, and the extraction engine 150, and the server512 can implement the reference manager 160, at least some of theauthority databases 162, the personal reference library 170, the fulltext database(s) 180, and the transaction/subscriber engine 190. In thepresent embodiment, one or more of the servers 510-512 can beimplemented as a web server. For example, the server 510 can beimplemented as a web server that hosts the user interface 110 of thesystem 100, which can be accessed by the clients 420-422 to display GUIsof the user interface on displays of the clients 420-422, which can beused to facilitate image-based retrieval of bibliographic informationand/or full text versions of references associated with a uniquealphanumeric identifiers included in images captured by the clients420-422.

An exemplary operation of the distributed system 100 shown in FIG. 5 issimilar to the operation of the system shown in FIG. 4, except thatdifferent servers perform different functions or operations of thesystem. For example, the users can access the system via the server 510to display a GUI on the display of the clients 420-422 that provides aninterface for capturing an image. After the image is captured, theclients 420-422 can transmit the image to the server 510 (eitherwirelessly or through a wire) via the communication network 450 and theserver 510 can be programmed and/or configured to transmit the capturedimage to the server 411 for processing. In some embodiments, the clientside application 423 can be programmed and/or configured to transmit thecaptured image to the server 511 without first transmitting the capturedimage to the server 510. The server 411 can execute the engine 130, 140,and 150 to convert the captured imaged into machine-encoded data ortextual elements, which can be parsed to detect unique alphanumericidentifiers included in the captured image, which can be submitted tothe reference manager 160 being executed by the server 412. If a uniquealphanumeric identifier has been detected, the reference manager caninstruct the server 410 to display the unique alphanumeric identifier tothe user via a GUI for confirmation.

The reference manager 160 can interface with one or more authoritydatabases and/or full text databases to retrieve bibliographicinformation and/or a full text version of the reference associated withthe unique alphanumeric identifier in response to a confirmation fromthe user and/or automatically (e.g., without requiring conformation fromthe user). Once the reference manager 160 retrieves the bibliographicinformation and/or full text, the bibliographic information and/or fulltext can be made available to the user via a GUI displayed in the clientdevice 420-422 via the server 410. The users can control the clients420-422 to view the bibliographic information and/or full text, save thebibliographic information and/or full text to the users' personalreference library maintained by the server 512. In some embodiments, thereference manager 160 provides the user with the bibliographicinformation by default and the user must separately request the fulltext version of the reference maintained by the full text database 180on the server 412.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram presenting a system configuration of andsoftware components/service to implement an exemplary distributedembodiment of the system 100 in a client-server environment 600 in whichat least one client implements at least a portion of the system 100. Asshown in FIG. 6, the environment 600 includes the servers 510-511 and612 operatively coupled to the clients 420-421 and the client 622 viathe communication network 450. Embodiments of the server 612 can beimplemented in a manner similar to the computing device 300 of FIG. 3and embodiments of the client 622 can be implemented in a manner similarto the portable computing device 200 of FIG. 2.

In an exemplary embodiment, the system 100 can be distributed across theservers 510-511 and 612 as described above in FIG. 5 except that theauthority databases 162, personal reference library 170, full textdatabases 180, and transaction server (e.g., on a server 613) do notreside on the server 612, but rather are operatively connected to theserver 612. As shown in FIG. 6, the client 622 can each include a clientside application 623 that is programmed and/or configured to be specificto the system 100 (e.g. a mobile application for the system 100) thatincludes the user interface 110, the recognition engine 130, theheuristics engine 140, and the extraction engine 150. The client 622 canbe programmed and/or configured to interact with the server 510 andtogether the client 622 and the server 612 can form an embodiment of thesystem 100, while the clients 420-421 operate as described with respectto FIG. 5.

In an exemplary operation, the client 622 can be operated by a user tocapture an image of a portion of written work of literature that includeat least one unique alphanumeric identifiers associated with the writtenwork of literature or references cited within the written work ofliterature. For example, the client 622 can execute the user interface110 to display a GUI on the display of the client 622 that provides aninterface for capturing an image. After the image is captured, theclient 622 can execute the engines 130, 140, and 150 to detect theunique alphanumeric identifier in the captured image by converting thecaptured imaged into machine-encoded data or textual elements andparsing the data/textual elements. The user interface can be executed bythe client 622 to display the unique alphanumeric identifier to the uservia a GUI for confirmation.

After the unique alphanumeric identifier is detected, the clients 622can transmit the unique to the server 612 (either wirelessly or througha wire) via the communication network 450 and the server 612 can beprogrammed and/or configured to process the unique alphanumericidentifier by executing the reference manager 160. The reference manager160 can interface with one or more authority databases 162 and/or fulltext databases 190 to retrieve bibliographic information and/or a fulltext version of the reference associated with the unique alphanumericidentifier. Once the reference manager 160 retrieves the bibliographicinformation and/or full text, the bibliographic information and/or fulltext can be made available to the user via a GUI displayed in the clientdevice 622 via the user interface 110. The users can control the client622 to view the bibliographic information and/or full text, save thebibliographic information and/or full text to the users' personalreference library 170. In some embodiments, the reference manager 160provides the user with the bibliographic information by default and theuser must separately request the full text version of the referencemaintained by the full text database 180.

FIGS. 7-15 are generally directed to a non-limiting example ofimplementing a reference management environment in accordance withexemplary embodiments of the present disclosure with respect to the Webof Knowledge research platform. While FIGS. 7-15 describe a non-limitingexample of an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, thoseskilled in the art will recognize that exemplary embodiments of thepresent disclosure can be implemented to form and/or be incorporatedinto any reference management environment in which unique alphanumericidentifiers identifying a written work or a reference to a written workare associated with or affixed to written works.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram presenting a system configuration ofhardware and software components and services to implement an exemplaryembodiment of a reference management environment 700. A portablecomputing device 210 can communicate with a reference management system710 via the communications network 450. The portable computing device210 can be a smartphone, tablet, subnotebook, laptop, personal digitalassistant (PDA), and/or any other suitable portable computing devicethat includes or can be operatively connected to an image capture device(e.g., image capture device 122) and can be programmed and/or configuredto communicate with servers of the reference management system 710 overa communications network. The portable computing device 210 and one ormore servers of the reference management system 710 can be programmedand/or configured to communicate using one or more transports layers andencoding methods, such as eXtensible Mark-Up Language—Remote ProcedureCall (XML-RPC) implementation, an XML Remote Procedure Call (XRPC) overSecure Socket Layer (SSL) implementation, an XML over Hypertext TransferProtocol (HTTP) communication implementation, Simple Object AccessProtocol (SOAP) implementation, and the like.

As shown in FIG. 7, the system 710 can include an authentication module712 that can receive a request for bibliographic information and/or thefull-text of a written work and can determine whether the portablecomputing device is authorized to interact with the environment 700(e.g., based on a username and/or password entered into the portablecomputing device). The authentication process can be applied to the userprior to allowing to access the system 710. The authentication mayrequire registration with a component of the system 710, such as thereference management component of the environment (e.g., ThomsonReuters' EndNote® Web). In some embodiments, after the user has beenauthenticated or authorized, the user may download to the portablecomputing device a client-side application specific to the system 710that can be used by the user to obtain bibliographic information and/orfull-text versions of references associated with a unique alphanumericidentifier included in a captured image. In some embodiments, the usermay not be required to download and utilize a client-side applicationspecific to the system 710, but instead may utilize a web browserapplication on the portable computing device 210. In some embodiments,the authentication process can be implemented prior to receiving arequest including a captured image.

In exemplary embodiments, the authentication module 712 can beconfigured to execute an authorization process to determine whether auser of the portable computing device is an authorized user and/or todetermine an authorization level of a user of the portable computingdevice. For example, in some embodiments, the user can be authorizedand/or authenticated base on a subscription status associated with theuser (e.g., is the user a subscriber and is the user's account current).User accounts can have different subscription level that can determinewhich authority databases are available to the user and/or which citedreference data in the authority databases are available to the user.That is, there can be different user authorization levels for differentsubscription levels (e.g., a first authorization level can be associatedwith a first subscription service level and a second authorization levelcan be associated with a second subscription service level). Usershaving a first authorization level can be provided a first subset of thecited reference data from the reference management system and a userhaving a second authorization level can be provided a second subset ofcited reference data from the reference management system. In someembodiments, the cited reference data can be optimized for display on aportable computing device if the user of the portable computing deviceis authorized.

The request can include an image of a portion of a tangible written workformed on paper or other suitable material. The image can include aunique alphanumeric identifier 702 corresponding to the a referencedwork in the tangible written work 704 that the user of the portablecomputing device 210 would like to retrieve via the environment 700.Upon a determination that the request is authorized, the authenticationmodule 712 can interface with an alphanumeric character recognitionmodule 714 that can include an embodiment of the recognition engine, theheuristics engine, and the extraction engine (FIG. 1). The alphanumericcharacter recognition module 714 can convert the image captured by, andreceived from, the portable computing device 210 into machine-encodeddata or text that can be parsed to extract the unique alphanumericidentifier captured in the image and provided to a Web of Knowledgereference manager module 716, which can interface with one or moreauthority databases 718, a throttling module 714, and an electroniccommerce (e-commerce) module 716.

The reference manager module 716 can construct one or more queries tosearch the authority databases based on the unique alphanumericidentifier extracted from the image. In exemplary embodiments, one ormore of the authority databases 718 can be proprietary databases 720internal to the system 710 and/or one or more of the authority databases718 can be public and/or proprietary databases 722 external to thesystem 710, but to which the system 710 has access. One or more of theauthority databases 718 can return one or more results based on theunique alphanumeric identifier, and the results can be transmitted fromthe system 710 to the portable computing device 210.

The throttling module 714 can be programmed and/or configured to manageincoming traffic to the environment 700 to provide a mechanism tocontrol communications congestion by optimizing a performance of theenvironment based on the data traffic being serviced by the environment700, for example, by stopping and/or disabling one or more operations,functions, or task performed by the environment. The congestion controlthrottle of the module 714 can be automatically enabled when the numberof anonymous users currently visiting the site exceeds the specifiedthreshold. The congestion control throttle can be automatically enabledwhen the number of authenticated users currently visiting the siteexceeds the specified threshold.

The e-commerce module 716 can be programmed and/or configured toimplement an embodiment of the transaction engine (FIG. 1) to facilitatefinancial transactions between the system 710 and the portable computingdevice 210. For example, the system 710 may require that users in theenvironment 700 have a subscription to access the system 710, may chargea fee for each search request received by the system 710, and/or maycharge a fee if the user wishes to access a full-text version of awritten work corresponding to a unique alphanumeric identifier includedin the request.

The modules and/or databases described with respect to FIG. 7 can eachbe implemented as servers in the system 710. In some embodiments, one ormore of the modules and/or databases can be incorporated or integratedinto a server such that the server implements more than one of themodules.

While the system 710 of the present embodiment performs the characterrecognition process, those skilled in the art will recognize that thecharacter recognition process can be implemented by the portablecomputing device 210 and/or by a service external to the system 710. Inthese embodiments, the request provided by the user can include theextracted unique alphanumeric identifier and/or the machine-encoded dataor text from the image.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram presenting a system configuration ofhardware and software components and services to implement an exemplaryembodiment of a reference management environment 800, which can includea comprehensive reference management system 802, such as the Web ofKnowledge research platform from Thomson Reuters. In the presentembodiment, the portable computing device 210 can communication with theenvironment 800 via the communication network 250. The system 802 caninclude a server farm 804 including servers 806 executing code for thereference management system 802. In one embodiment, the server farm 804can be programmed and/or configured to implement an authenticationprocess prior to allowing a user of the portable computing device 210 toaccess the reference management system 802.

The authentication process may require registration with a component ofthe system, such as a reference management software component (e.g.,Thomson Reuters' EndNote® Web). The authentication process can includean authentication request sent to the server farm 804 by the portablecomputing device. If the server farm 804 operating in conjunction withan authentication server 808 determines that the user is authorized toaccess the reference management system 802, the server farm 804 canreturn a Mobile Session Identifier (MSID) to create a session betweenthe portable computing device 210 and the environment 800. The MSID canutilized in the communications between the portable computing device 210and the server farm 804 during the session to ensure that the portablecomputing device 210 can access the system 802. The MSID can bemaintained and/or controlled by a daemon application 810 that executeson the server farm 804 in the background of an exemplary embodiment ofthe reference manager 812 and interacts with the reference managersystem 812 being executed by the sever farm 804.

Once the user has been authenticated or authorized, the user, via theportable computing device 210 can interact with the system 802 toretrieve bibliographic information and/or a full-text version of one ormore references cited in a tangible written work based on an imagecaptured of at least a portion of the written work by an imageacquisition device of the portable computing device as described herein.Bibliographic information and/or full-text versions of referencesreturned by the system 802 in response to the search request can bestored in the portable computing device 210 or remotely from theportable computing device 210 for example, in a component 814 of thecomprehensive reference management system 810 (e.g., EndNote® Web) forlater retrieval, email, and/or printing.

In some embodiments, a commercial rights management application 816 canbe executed by the sever farm 804. The application 816 can be utilizedby the reference management system 810 to ensure that the copyrights ofwritten works are protected and/or respected by users of the system 802,e.g., based on rights management data associated with the written works.

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram presenting a system configuration ofhardware and software components and services to implement an exemplaryembodiment of a reference management environment 900, which can be acomprehensive reference management, such as the Web of Knowledgeresearch platform from Thomson Reuters. The environment 900 can beimplemented in a substantially similar manner as the environment 800 ofFIG. 8, except that the character recognition process can be implementedon server(s) 902 externally from the server farm 804 and may beimplemented within or externally to the system 802.

FIG. 10 depicts an exemplary embodiment of online information-retrievaland analysis components of a comprehensive reference management systems(e.g., Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge®) having a client-serverarchitecture that includes a set of databases 1002 or data storage unitsand a server system 1004, which may be accessed by the portablecomputing device 210. The databases 1002 can include a set of primarydatabases 1006, a set of secondary databases 1008, and a set of metadatadatabases 1010, which represent resources relied on by users, such asresearchers, scholars, students and other professionals. Primarydatabases 1006 may be proprietary, subscription-based, or internal to aservice provider, such as Thomson Reuters Web of Science® and Web ofKnowledge® database(s), Cortellus, and a Thomson Reuters Innovationdatabase(s). The secondary databases 1008 may be external or publicdatabases that represent further resources of interest to a group ofusers and may supplement authorities to those offered by the primarydatabase 1006. In one embodiment, the secondary databases 1008 caninclude, for example, a PubMed database, a AMJUR database, and aCrossref.org database. The metadata databases 1010 can include, forexample, citation relationships, abstracts, links, classification data,and other source data associated with written works. As describedherein, exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure can includedatabases that include written works having content that relates tolegal, research, financial, scientific, and/or health-care information,as well as any other written works having any other content thatincludes unique alphanumeric identifiers that can be used to identifyand retrieve references cited within the written works or to identifyand retrieve the written works themselves.

The databases 1002 may be one or more electronic, magnetic, or opticaldata-storage devices, include or are otherwise associated withrespective indices (not shown). Each of the indices includes terms andphrases in association with corresponding document addresses,identifiers, and other conventional information. The databases 1002 arecoupled or coupleable via a wireless or wired communications network,such as a local-, wide-, private-, or virtual-private network, to theserver(s) as described herein.

The server system 1004, which is generally representative of one or moreservers for serving data in the form of webpages or other markuplanguage forms with associated applets, ActiveX controls,remote-invocation objects, or other related software and data structuresto service clients of various “thicknesses.” More particularly, in oneembodiment the server system 1004 can include a processor module 1020, amemory module 1022, a subscriber database 1024, a primary search module1026, metadata research module 1028, and a user-interface module 1030.The processor module 1020 may include one or more local or distributedprocessors, controllers, or virtual machines. In one embodiment,processor module 1020 can assume any convenient or desirable form asknown to those of skill in the art. The memory module 1022, which may beone or more electronic, magnetic, or optical data-storage devices, canstore subscriber database 1024, primary search module 1026, secondarysearch module 1028, and citation recommendation module 1030.

The subscriber database 1024 includes subscriber-related data forcontrolling, administering, and managing pay-as-you-go orsubscription-based access of databases 1002. The subscriber database1024 may include one or more user preference (or more generally) userdata structures. In one embodiment, one or more aspects of the user datastructure relate to user customization of various search and interfaceoptions. To this end, some embodiments of the present disclosure caninclude user profile information such as biographical information,institution association (e.g., university, corporation, society, etc.),area of practice or study or research (e.g., asthma, allergy), and priorpublications. User data may be used to authenticate user credentials andgrant access to subscriber-based resources or work spaces. For seamlessaccess across multiple platforms and/or services or resources anintegrated credentialing service may be used, e.g., Thomson Reuters'OnePass solution.

The primary search module 1026 can include one or more search enginesand related user-interface components, for receiving and processing dataagainst one or more of the databases 1002. In some embodiment, one ormore search engines associated with search module 1026 provide Boolean,term frequency—inverse document frequency (tf-idf), and/ornatural-language analysis capabilities. The secondary search module 1028can also include one or more search engines for processing data againstone or more of databases 1002.

In some embodiments, the server system 1004 can include the citationsrecommendation module 1030 to recommend citations to a user based on arequest received by the user via the portable computing device 210. Forexample, the user may capture an image including a unique alphanumericidentifier that can be utilized by the server to search one or more ofthe databases 1002. In response to the search, the server system 1004can return a set of references that may be or interest to the user, maybe related to reference associated with the unique alphanumericidentifier, may be cited in the reference associated with the uniquealphanumeric identifier, and the like.

In some embodiments, the server system 1004 can include aninformation-integration-tools (IIT) framework module 1040 (or softwareframework or platform). The IIT framework module can include machinereadable and/or executable instruction sets for wholly or partlydefining software and related user interfaces having one or moreportions thereof that integrate or cooperate with one or moredocument-processing (or document authoring or editing) applications,such as word processing applications, email applications, presentationapplications, and spreadsheet applications. In some embodiment, theseapplications can be hosted on one or more accesses devices, e.g., theportable computing device 210.

FIG. 11 illustrates non-exhaustive examples of written works ofliterature 1100 that can be utilized in accordance with exemplaryembodiments of the present disclosure. An exemplary unique alphanumericidentifier 1102 in the form of a DOI is shown for one of the writtenworks 1100. As shown in FIG. 11, the unique alphanumeric identifier 1102can included in the text of the written work. The text of the writtenwork 1100 can surround the unique alphanumeric identifier 1102 such thatit may not be possible or practical to only capture the uniquealphanumeric identifier 1102 in an image for use with exemplaryembodiments of the present disclosure. As described herein, exemplaryembodiments of the present disclosure can utilize heuristic processingto process machine-enabled data or text resulting from a characterrecognition process being executed on a captured image and distinguishthe unique alphanumeric identifier from the surrounding text.

FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary image acquisition interface 1202rendered on a portable computing device 1200 in accordance withexemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. A user of the portablecomputing device 1200 who desires to electronically access a scholarlywritten work from a comprehensive reference management system can holdthe image acquisition device of the portable computing device over thecitation, including a unique alphanumeric identifier 1206 and take apicture by selecting the control 1204 to capture an image include theunique alphanumeric identifier 1206. In accordance with exemplaryembodiments of the present disclosure, the captured image can beconverted into machine-encoded data or text using a characterrecognition process, such as a character recognition process implementedby optical character recognition (OCR) software, intelligent characterrecognition (ICR) software, intelligent word recognition (IWR) software,and the like.

The character recognition software can include supporting scripts thatare used to parse the extracted text/data elements to determine whethera unique alphanumeric identifier is present. If so, the uniquealphanumeric identifier, bibliographic information related to the uniquealphanumeric identifier, and/or a full-text version of a referencerelated to the unique alphanumeric identifier can be returned to theuser. Otherwise, an indication that no unique alphanumeric identifierwas found or that the process to obtain the unique alphanumericidentifier otherwise failed. Alternatively, or in addition, exemplaryembodiments of the present disclosure may communicate that an exactmatch has not been found and may suggest possible alternates to the uservia the portable computing device.

FIGS. 13 and 14 illustrate exemplary graphical user interfaces 1300 and1400, respectively, that can be rendered on a display of a portablecomputing device 1350 (e.g., a smartphone, tablet) and that may be usedin conjunction with exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. TheGUIs 1300 and 1400 provide a search interface that allows a user of theportable computing device 1350 interface with exemplary embodiments ofthe reference management systems described herein. As one example, withreference to FIG. 13, the interface 1300 allows a user of the portablecomputing device 1350 to search at least one of the one authoritydatabases by specifying citation data, such as a title 1302, an author1304, a publication year 1306, and/or any other suitable citation data.As another example, with reference to FIG. 14, the interface 1400 canalso be programmed and/or configured to allow the user to specify orselect which authority databases 1402 to search. Although FIG. 13 showssearching by title, author and publication year, it will be appreciatedthat other citation data may be included (e.g., publisher identity,volume, edition, etc.) as known to those of skill in the art. As shownin FIG. 13, the interface 1300 can be displayed to the user uponselection of a manual search button 1310 and the user can navigate tothe interface 1202 of FIG. 12 upon selection of the scan button 1312.

In exemplary embodiments, the reference management systems and/orclient-side applications described herein can be executed to render theinterface 1300 and/or 1400 on a display of the portable computing device1350 in response to a determination by the reference management systemthat no unique alphanumeric identifier was included in the capturedimage that is utilized to facilitate searching of the one or moreauthority databases and/or that a unique alphanumeric identifierdetected in a captured image does not match or relate to any of thebibliographic information and/or full-text written works stored in theauthority databases. In some embodiments, the interfaces 1300 and/or1400 can be provided to allows the user to perform a manual search ofthe authority databases by entering search criteria such as authorinformation, publisher information, title information, publication yearinformation, a unique alphanumeric identifier, and the like.

In some embodiments, the reference management systems and/or client-sideapplications described herein can be executed to render the interface1300 and/or 1400 on a display of the portable computing device 1350 andcan automatically populate at least one or more of the data entry/searchfields for the user based on a unique alphanumeric identifier includedin a captured image to allow the user of the portable computing deviceto submit a broader search based on, for example, a title, an author, apublication year, and/or any other suitable citation data.

FIG. 15 depicts an exemplary graphical user interface 1500 that can berendered on a display of the portable computing device 1350 (e.g., asmartphone, tablet) and that may be used in conjunction with exemplaryembodiments of the present disclosure to retrieve and storebibliographic information and/or full-text versions of written works(collectively reference data 1502) in a user's personal referencelibrary 1504. For example, in an exemplary embodiment, the interface1500 can allow the user of the portable computing device 1350 tointeract with EndNote Web®, to store cited reference data includingmetadata in the portable computing device 1350 and/or remote from theportable computing device 1350 for later retrieval, email and/orprinting. In exemplary embodiments, results from search requestssubmitted by the user through, for example, the portable computingdevice based on an acquired image of a unique alphanumeric identifierincluded in a physical/tangible written work, can be stored in theuser's personal library 1504 for subsequent use.

FIG. 16 is a flowchart illustrating an exemplary image-based referenceretrieval process 1600 that can be implemented in accordance withexemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. To being, at step 1602,a user's portable computing device can be utilized to capture an imageof a portion of a written work including a unique alphanumericidentifier. At step 1604, a character recognition process can beimplemented on the image to extract the unique alphanumeric identifier.Once the unique alphanumeric identifier is obtained, the identifier issent to a comprehensive reference management system (e.g., ThomsonReuters' Web of Knowledge research platform) by the portable computingdevice at step 1606.

At step 1608, the reference management system execute code toprogrammatically compare the received identifier against storedidentifiers in at least one authority database (e.g., Thomson ReutersWeb of Knowledge and Web of Science databases and/or public citationreference databases). If there is a favorable comparison (step 1610),cited reference data including metadata is retrieved for the writtenwork associated with the unique alphanumeric identifier extracted fromthe image at step 1612. (As set forth above, it will be appreciated bythose of skill in the art that a “favorable comparison” encompasses notonly an exact match of the extracted unique alphanumeric identifier andthe stored identifier, but also a less than exact match, where somedegree or percentage of tolerance is allowed. In such a case, thereference management system may communicate that an exact match has notbeen found and may suggest possible alternates.)

If there is no favorable comparison (step 1610), the referencemanagement system can be executed to instruct a user interface to rendera GUI on a display of the user's portable computing device indicatingthat there was no favorable comparison and that the search criteria(e.g., including the unique alphanumeric identifier) can bemodified/edited and resubmitted for another comparison at step 1614. Insome embodiments, the cited reference data including metadata may bestored off-device; for example, in a component of the comprehensivereference management system (e.g., EndNote® Web) for later retrieval,email and/or printing.

FIG. 17 flowchart illustrating an exemplary image-based referenceretrieval process 1700 that can be implemented in accordance withexemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. At step 1702, a user'sportable computing device can download and install a mobile application(e.g., a client-side application specific to the reference managementsystem). After the application is downloaded the user can create anaccount with the reference management. These steps are known to those ofskill in the art and will not be discussed in further detail. In someembodiments, the communications between the reference management systemand the portable computing device are carried out using XML RemoteProcedure Call over Secured Socket Layer (XRPC over SSL), and theauthorization responses and requests use the open authorization (OAuth)protocol using the portable computing device's mobile station ID (MSID).In one embodiment, authentication and registration subsystems (notshown) of the reference management system (e.g., Thomson Reuters' Web ofKnowledge research platform), and a user rights management andauthentication system (e.g., Valve Corporation's STEAM solution)register and authenticate the portable computing device.

After mobile application installation and authentication, the user cancapture an image of a portion of a written work including a uniquealphanumeric identifier using the portable computing device at step1704. At step 1706, the captured image can be forwarded to a systemcomponent that executes a character recognition process to convert thecaptured imaged into machine-encoded data or text, and at step 1708, theunique alphanumeric identifier is extracted from the machine-encodeddata or text.

At step 1710, the extract unique alphanumeric identifier is comparedagainst data and information stored in one or more authority databases.If the extracted identifier compares favorably with the data andinformation stored in the one or more authority databases (step 1712),the associated cited reference data is retrieved from the authoritydatabase(s) at step 1714 and provided along with the associated metadatato the portable computing device for display at step 1716. Otherwise,the user may be sent an error message and/or may be prompted to modifythe search criteria at step 1718. The data and information provided bythe system may be stored off-device for later use and retrieval by theuser. In one embodiment, the data and information is provisioned orcustomized and stored in a reference library component in ThomsonReuters' EndNote publishing solution.

Various features of the system may be implemented in hardware, software,firmware or a combination thereof. For example, some features of thesystem may be implemented in one or more computer programs executing onprogrammable computers.

Each program may be implemented in a high level procedural orobject-oriented programming language to communicate with a computersystem or other machine.

Furthermore, each such computer program may be stored on anon-transitory storage medium such as read only-memory (ROM) readable orexecutable by processing device, for configuring and operating thecomputer to perform the functions described above.

The foregoing description of the specific embodiments of the subjectmatter disclosed herein has been presented for purposes of illustrationand description and is not intended to limit the scope of the subjectmatter set forth herein. It is fully contemplated that other variousembodiments, modifications and applications will become apparent tothose of ordinary skill in the art from the foregoing description andaccompanying drawings. Thus, such other embodiments, modifications, andapplications are intended to fall within the scope of the followingappended claims. Further, those of ordinary skill in the art willappreciate that the embodiments, modifications, and applications thathave been described herein are in the context of particular environment,and the subject matter set forth herein is not limited thereto, but canbe beneficially applied in any number of other manners, environments andpurposes. Accordingly, the claims set forth below should be construed inview of the full breadth and spirit of the novel features and techniquesas disclosed herein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of implementing image-based retrieval ofa cited reference in a written work comprising: programmaticallycomparing, by a computer system, a unique alphanumeric identifierextracted from an image taken of a portion of a written work to storedidentifiers in an authority database in response to a request receivedfrom a portable computing device having a display, at least oneprocessor, a battery, and an image capture device, the image beingcaptured by the image capture device; executing code to retrieve, fromthe authority database, cited reference data in response to a favorablycomparison of the unique alphanumeric identifier to at least one of thestored identifiers associated with a reference stored in the authoritydatabase; and providing the cited reference data from the computersystem to the portable computing device for output on the display of theportable computing device.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprisingextracting the unique alphanumeric identifier upon execution of acharacter recognition process, the character recognition processincluding at least one of an optical character recognition (OCR)process, an intelligent character recognition (ICR) process, or anintelligent word recognition (IWR) process.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein the unique alphanumeric identifier is a digital objectidentifier.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein written work is ascholarly reference publication, the image includes text of thescholarly reference publication, the unique alphanumeric identifierincludes alphanumeric characters extracted from the text included in theimage.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: extracting theunique alphanumeric identifier upon execution of a character recognitionprocess by the portable computing device; and parsing alphanumericcharacters extracted from the image to obtain the unique alphanumericidentifier.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: extracting theunique alphanumeric identifier upon execution of a character recognitionprocess by the computer system; and parsing alphanumeric charactersextracted from the image to obtain the unique alphanumeric identifier.7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: extracting the uniquealphanumeric identifier upon execution of a character recognitionprocess by a second computer system; and parsing alphanumeric charactersextracted from the image to obtain the unique alphanumeric identifier.8. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving at the computersystem, a further request from the portable computing device if theunique alphanumeric identifier does not compare favorably with thestored identifiers in the authority database, the further requestincluding modified search criteria; and searching the authority databasebased on the modified search criteria.
 9. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: applying an authorization process in order to determine anauthorization level of a user of the portable computing device; and,providing a first subset of the cited reference data from the computersystem based on a first level of authorization of the user and a secondsubset of the cited reference data based on a second level ofauthorization of the user.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein the firstand second authorization levels are based on a subscription servicelevel.
 11. The method of claim 1, further comprising: applying anauthorization process in order to determine whether a user of theportable computing device is an authorized user; and, optimizing thecited reference data for display on a portable computing device if theuser of the portable computing device is authorized.
 12. The method ofclaim 12, wherein the user is authenticated based on a subscriptionstatus.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein the cited reference datacomprises at least one of title, author, and publication year.
 14. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising receiving from the portablecomputing device the cited reference data for storage in a referencemanagement system.
 15. The method of claim 14, wherein the referencemanagement system is integrated with the computer system.
 16. The methodof claim 14, wherein the reference management system includes aweb-based user interface.
 17. A computer system for implementingimage-based retrieval of a cited reference in a written work comprising:one or more computing devices, the one or more servers including atleast one processing device and at least one non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing instruction being executed by the atleast one processing device to: programmatically compare a uniquealphanumeric identifier extracted from an image taken of a portion of awritten work to stored identifiers in an authority database in responseto a request received from a portable computing device having a display,at least one processor, a battery, and an image capture device, theimage being captured by the image capture device; retrieve, from theauthority database, cited reference data in response to a favorablycomparison of the unique alphanumeric identifier to at least one of thestored identifiers associated with a reference stored in the authoritydatabase; and provide the cited reference data from the one or morecomputing devices to the portable computing device for output on thedisplay of the portable computing device.
 18. The system of claim 17,wherein execution of the instructions by the at least one processingdevice causes the at least one processing to: extract the uniquealphanumeric identifier upon execution of a character recognitionprocess by the computer system; and parse alphanumeric charactersextracted from the image to obtain the unique alphanumeric identifier.19. A portable computing device for implementing image-based retrievalof a cited reference in a written work from an authority database, thecomprising: a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing executableinstructions to facilitate an image-based retrieval of a cited referencein a written work from an authority database an image capture unitconfigured to capture an image of text included in the written work; aprocessing device operatively coupled to the image capture unit and thenon-transitory computer-readable medium, the processing device beingprogrammed to execute the executable instructions to: interact with theimage capture unit to receive the image of the text included in thewritten work; extract a unique alphanumeric identifier from the imagebased on a character recognition process performed on the image toconvert the text in the image into a machine-readable format; output arequest including the unique alphanumeric identifier to a referencemanagement system for retrieval of cited reference data from theauthority database; and receive the cited reference data stored theauthority database in response to a favorable comparison of the uniquealphanumeric identifier with a stored identifier in the authoritydatabase; a battery configured to supply power to the non-transitorycomputer-readable media, the image capture unit, and the processingdevice.
 20. The portable computing device of claim 19, wherein theportable computing device comprises at least one of a mobile phone or atablet computing device.